Hardcastle's Frustration

by Graham Ison

  ‘So tell me what happened when you say that Mortimer turned up at your shop on this Sunday evening at the beginning of March.’

  ‘He said he’d got a bloke in his car and I was to give him a hand to get him upstairs to my rooms.’

  ‘I presume you did help him, Watkins,’ said Marriott.

  ‘Yes, but I got a surprise because the man in the car was only half conscious.’ Watkins switched his gaze to Marriott. ‘I think he’d been drugged. Anyway, we got him upstairs – it was all quiet in the street, fortunately – but then Mortimer said I was to dispose of him.’

  ‘Did he say how? Or, for that matter why he wanted him disposed of?’ Hardcastle dismissed the story of the half-drugged man. Dr Spilsbury had not found any trace of noxious substances in Parker’s system. It was more likely that he had been knocked unconscious.

  ‘He said that the man was a German spy and that the government wanted him got rid of. He said that the authorities couldn’t arrest him because it would alert other spies to the fact that they’d been rumbled, and that he just had to disappear. And he said that I wasn’t to breathe a word to anyone about it because it was secret government business.’

  ‘What did you understand by “getting rid of him”, Watkins?’

  ‘I didn’t know, so I asked him. He told me I was to kill the man and dump his body in the river.’

  ‘What did you say to that?’

  ‘Well, I was terrified, and then I refused, of course. But then Mortimer said that if I didn’t do what I was told, I would be arrested myself for . . .’ Watkins paused. ‘Yes, he said that I’d be arrested for conspiring with a German spy and that I’d be hanged. Those were his exact words.’

  And Mortimer was absolutely right, thought Hardcastle.

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘Mortimer gave me a revolver, the one you’ve got there,’ said Watkins, pointing to the weapon on the table, ‘and an old sack. He told me I was to shoot the man, tie him up in the sack and dump him.’ Watkins was sweating now probably because he realized that, in the cold light of day, the story was too incredible.

  ‘I don’t believe a word of this.’ Hardcastle leaned back in his chair, took out his pipe and began to fill it.

  ‘It’s the truth, I swear it,’ said Watkins desperately. ‘What was I to do, Inspector? It was a case of kill this man or be hanged.’

  ‘Well, my friend, you’ve scored a double, because you’ll be hanged anyway, one early morning at Wormwood Scrubs prison, most likely.’

  ‘But what was I to do?’ demanded the anguished Watkins again. He was white-faced now and sweating profusely, and his hands, clasped together on the table, were clenched tight.

  ‘You could’ve called a policeman before you killed this man and told him the story,’ said Marriott mildly. ‘He might just have believed it, but whether he did or not, he’d certainly have looked into it. And if it was as secret as Mortimer said it was, the police would’ve known how to deal with it.’

  ‘But Mortimer said I wasn’t to breathe a word to anyone including the police,’ said Watkins, ‘otherwise the government’s plan would be ruined and they’d never catch the spies.’

  ‘So, on the basis of this flimsy story, you killed Ronald Parker anyway,’ commented Hardcastle brutally. ‘Despite it being an outrageous request.’

  ‘Was that his name?’ asked Watkins innocently, despite Hardcastle having mentioned Parker’s name before. ‘Mortimer never told me who he was, other than to say he was a spy. But yes, I did for him. I shot him in the back of the head.’

  ‘And how did you get his body to the river?’

  ‘I borrowed a box-tricycle from the grocer down the road. I told him I’d got some stuff to shift round to my sister’s place. I done the body up in the sack Mortimer had given me, dragged it down the stairs and out through the back door into the yard. Then I got it into the tricycle and made for the river. No one saw me, on account of all the street lights being out because of the blackout. When I got to the river, I tipped him in the drink just by the bridge. I took the tricycle back to the grocer the next morning.’

  ‘Bloody amazing, Marriott,’ exclaimed Hardcastle. ‘Our Mr Watkins, a Battersea barber, murders Parker, sticks him in a box tricycle and calmly pedals his way down to the river in the dead of night and chucks him in.’ Turning to his prisoner again, he said, ‘Henry Watkins, I am charging you with the murder of Ronald Parker on or about the third of March this year.’ He glanced at Marriott. ‘Take him out to the charge room and tell the station officer I’ll be there directly to prefer the charge.’

  ‘But it was government work,’ protested Watkins, as Marriott steered him towards the door. ‘That’s what Mortimer told me.’

  ‘You’re dead right about that, Watkins, it most certainly was government work,’ said Hardcastle. ‘Unfortunately for you, it was the German government you were doing this for, not ours. Lawrence Mortimer was a German spy and has since been tried and convicted. His real name is Gerhard von Kleiber and he’ll shortly be executed at the Tower of London.’

  ‘Oh my God, it can’t be true.’ Watkins paled significantly, and for a moment it looked as though he would collapse, but for the supporting arm of Marriott.

  ‘Well, Marriott, what d’you make of that?’ asked Hardcastle, when he and his sergeant were back in the DDI’s office.

  ‘Like you said, sir, it’s bloody amazing,’ said Marriott. ‘But do you believe him?’

  ‘Well, he certainly admitted killing Parker, and Mr Franklin confirmed that the revolver we’ve got was the one that Watkins used to commit the murder. But if his story’s to be believed, he could’ve genuinely thought he was working for the government, our government. I don’t think he had the slightest idea that Mortimer was a spy and that he, Watkins, was therefore indirectly working for the Germans. But murder’s murder.’

  ‘I think you’re probably right, sir. I don’t doubt that Mortimer scared the living daylights out of him with his threat of execution. And I’m not sure our people would’ve believed him even if he had called in at Battersea nick.’

  Hardcastle laughed. ‘No, perhaps not, Marriott, but they might’ve prevented the murder. It makes no difference though, he’ll swing anyway.’ He stood up. ‘Bow Street court Monday morning, then. In the meantime, Marriott, take the weekend off, and my regards to Mrs Marriott.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’ Marriott glanced at the clock on Hardcastle’s wall; it was five past six. ‘And mine to Mrs H.’

  ‘Henry Watkins, charge of murder, Your Worship,’ cried the gaoler in Number One Court at Bow Street, as the prisoner entered the dock.

  ‘You seem to making a habit of charging people with murder, Inspector.’ Sir Robert Dummett, the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, cast a benevolent smile in Hardcastle’s direction.

  ‘Indeed, Your Worship.’

  ‘Are you ready to proceed?’

  ‘Not at this stage, Your Worship. I respectfully ask for a remand in custody.’

  ‘Very well.’ Dummett looked at the prisoner. ‘You will be remanded until Tuesday the sixteenth of April,’ he said, scribbling a note in his ledger. ‘Next.’

  Outside the court, Hardcastle hailed a taxi and asked to be taken to Scotland Yard.

  ‘And I mean Scotland Yard this time, Marriott,’ he said. ‘I’m going to see Superintendent Quinn.’

  ‘Well, Mr Hardcastle, what is it now?’ Quinn looked up with an expression of irritation at being confronted, yet again, by A Division’s DDI.

  ‘I thought I should inform you that I arrested a Battersea barber named Henry Watkins on Saturday last, sir.’

  ‘And of what possible interest to Special Branch do you imagine that to be?’ Quinn laid down his pen and leaned back in his chair, an enquiring and slightly sarcastic look on his face.

  ‘I arrested him for the murder of Ronald Parker, sir.’

  ‘You did what?’ Quinn was clearly outraged at this announcement. ‘But von Kleiber has confessed to that murder, a
nd the Attorney offered no evidence at the police court.’

  ‘Watkins confessed to it, sir, and I seized the firearm that was in his possession. Detective Inspector Franklin is adamant that it was the weapon used to murder Parker, and will testify to that end.’

  ‘What made you decide to arrest this man, Mr Hardcastle?’

  Hardcastle explained about his visit to Mavis Parker and his seizure of the raincoat that von Kleiber had left at her house. But when he mentioned the slip of paper he had found that gave Watkins’s address, the superintendent interrupted him.

  ‘This is all most irregular, Mr Hardcastle. That raincoat should have been handed over to me at once.’

  ‘I was rather surprised that your officers hadn’t found it, sir,’ said Hardcastle, risking a reproof, but at once delighted that he had scored a rare point against Special Branch.

  But Quinn immediately realized that his own officers had been at fault and, Hardcastle thought, they would be in line for a severe dressing down. Nevertheless, Quinn was obviously undecided what he should do about the problem which the DDI had placed before him and sat in silence for some moments. ‘It would seem that von Kleiber, knowing that he would be executed for espionage, confessed to the murder in order to protect this man Watkins,’ he said eventually. ‘Doubtless so that Watkins could be used on another occasion by another agent, should he be required.’

  ‘That was my thinking, sir,’ said Hardcastle, to whom the thought had not occurred until Quinn had suggested it.

  ‘What stage have you reached in dealing with this man Watkins?’

  ‘He appeared at Bow Street police court this morning charged with murder, sir, and was remanded in custody until the sixteenth of this month.’

  ‘I trust no mention was made of von Kleiber at this hearing.’

  ‘No, sir. It was simply an appearance to secure an eight day remand.’

  Quinn glanced at the calendar on his desk. ‘Well, that gives us a week to decide what to do. I shall consult Mr Thomson about the matter.’ Basil Thomson was the assistant commissioner for crime, but in recent years had been taking a far greater interest in Special Branch operations than in ordinary crime. ‘I’ll let you know his decision, Mr Hardcastle. In the meantime, you’re to take no further action.’

  ‘Very good, sir,’ said Hardcastle, who could not think of any action he might have taken.

  Hardcastle did not have long to wait for the assistant commissioner’s decision. The next morning, Detective Inspector Drew appeared in the DDI’s office.

  ‘Mr Quinn’s compliments, sir, and although he realizes how busy you are, he’d be grateful if you could spare him a moment at your convenience, preferably today.’

  ‘Very well, Mr Drew, I’ll see him directly.’ Hardcastle was surprised at the conciliatory form of Quinn’s summons, but did not comment on it. Putting on his hat and seizing his umbrella, he made his way across the courtyard separating Cannon Row police station from New Scotland Yard, and to Quinn’s office.

  ‘Ah, Mr Hardcastle, please take a seat.’ Quinn seemed to be in quite a jovial mood. It was certainly the first time that the DDI had been invited to sit down. ‘I’ve spoken to Mr Thomson and he, in turn, has discussed the matter with the Attorney-General. You are to go ahead with the prosecution of Watkins, but the trial will be held in camera. The Attorney has decided that von Kleiber’s confession will be allowed to stand, and for that reason, scant regard will be paid to this extraordinary story that Watkins told you. He’ll doubtless be convicted as if it were an ordinary sort of murder.’

  ‘But do you think that his story will be accepted by the jury, sir?’ asked Hardcastle.

  ‘No question of it, Mr Hardcastle. In fact, I’m quite sure that the Attorney will have no trouble in dismissing Watkins’s story as a fiction he dreamed up to justify the murder of Parker.’

  ‘But what sort of motive will I be able to present to the jury, sir?’

  ‘The Attorney will take care of that, Mr Hardcastle.’ Quinn waved a hand of dismissal, as though it were of no importance. ‘It’s obvious now though, that Ronald Parker had been given cause to suspect that von Kleiber was a spy, probably as a result of his wife’s friendship with the man, coupled with her employment. In the circumstances, I imagine that von Kleiber was fearful that he would be exposed. With hindsight, it might’ve been better if we’d taken Ronald Parker into our confidence and told him that MI5 and this Branch had already got the matter well in hand.’

  TWENTY

  It was six o’clock in the morning of Tuesday the twenty-third of April 1918, St George’s Day. It so happened that it was the day when the Royal Navy was to mount its daring attack on Zeebrugge with the intention of sinking three old cruisers to block the harbour. But there was no symbolism in the selection of that date, for few people knew of it until afterwards; it was merely a coincidence.

  The eight men of the Scots Guards who were to comprise the firing squad marched out of Waterloo Barracks in the Tower of London. Their sergeant halted them near the execution block where Anne Boleyn had met her end nearly four hundred years previously.

  Within minutes, Hauptmann Gerhard von Kleiber, accompanied by an army chaplain with an open Bible in his hands, was escorted from the guardroom in the barracks and secured skilfully and quickly to the execution post by the sergeant.

  The Scots Guards officer, a youthful lieutenant, stepped across to von Kleiber and proffered a blindfold. The spy declined it with a brusque shake of the head and faced his executioners with his eyes open.

  The chaplain finished intoning a few words and moved out of the line of fire.

  As the volley of shots rang out and von Kleiber’s lifeless body slumped in its bonds, the Tower of London’s ravens rose panic-stricken from their resting places, cawing loudly in the dawn air.

  The medical officer stepped forward and, satisfying himself that von Kleiber was dead, nodded briefly to the officer commanding the firing squad. The officer nodded in return, grateful that he would not be required to administer the coup de grâce with his revolver. Taking a pace forward, he saluted the corpse.

  ‘Your leave to speak, sir, if you please, sir?’ asked his sergeant, snapping to attention. ‘What did you salute yon man for, sir? He was naught but a dirty spy.’

  ‘That’s where you’re wrong, Sergeant,’ said the lieutenant. ‘A spy he may have been, but Hauptmann von Kleiber was also a soldier and a brave man. It was a compliment from one soldier to another.’

  ‘Sir,’ said the sergeant. ‘Your leave to march off, sir, if you please, sir?’

  Under cover of darkness that same evening, the start of a clandestine ceremony took place. At ten o’clock a plain van entered the Tower of London. Moments later a simple, wooden coffin bearing the mortal remains of Hauptmann Gerhard von Kleiber was loaded into the van by four men.

  The van drove the seven miles to the East London cemetery in Plaistow. Once inside, it continued until it reached a far corner where it stopped. The gates of the cemetery were closed and two policemen stood guard.

  The four men placed the coffin on stretchers over a grave that had been dug earlier in the day.

  In the light of several hurricane lamps an army chaplain, the same chaplain who had sought to offer von Kleiber solace in his last minutes on earth, conducted the funeral service. Finally, the four men lowered the coffin into the grave and shovelled earth into it until there was just a slight mound to mark von Kleiber’s last resting place.

  Returning to the van, one of the men brought out a cross bearing a number and nothing else, and hammered it into the ground at the head of the grave. The number on the cross corresponded to the number on the coffin, and was the only clue to the identity of its occupant. It was an identity known only to MI5.

  Hardcastle was surprised to see Superintendent Quinn and Assistant Commissioner Thomson seated in the well of Number One Court at the Old Bailey on the day that Watkins’s trial opened. As Quinn had predicted, the trial was held in camera, and the
only members of the public in court were the twelve men of property comprising the jury.

  ‘Lock the doors,’ cried the clerk of the court, and a policeman moved to comply with the order.

  The Attorney-General, Sir Frederick Smith, better known to members of the bar and beyond as ‘F.E.’, led for the Crown, and Sir Richard Leary KC was faced with the near impossible task of defending the prisoner.

  Henry Watkins pleaded Not Guilty and the only four prosecution witnesses – Hardcastle, Marriott, Doctor Bernard Spilsbury and Detective Inspector Franklin – gave their damning testimony.

  Spilsbury gave evidence of the cause of death, and Franklin explained how he had deduced that the revolver seized by Hardcastle was the weapon used to commit the murder.

  Hardcastle told the court of the statements made by Watkins when he was arrested, and Marriott followed him into the witness box to corroborate what his chief had said.

  After each witness had given his evidence in chief, Sir Richard Leary rose to ask a few questions, but he was unable to shake the evidence. Hardcastle got the impression that Leary knew that there was little he could do to aid the prisoner.

  Watkins was the only witness for the defence and repeated the story he had told Hardcastle. He seemed quite sincere in his belief that he had committed the murder on behalf of the British government. And despite what Quinn had suggested, the Attorney-General’s relentless cross-examination was unable to persuade Watkins otherwise.

  In the circumstances, there could be but one verdict.

  The judge donned the black cap and pronounced sentence of death. The judge’s chaplain intoned the single word, ‘Amen’, and the trial was over.

  There was, however, a surprising corollary to the trial. Even though neither the police, nor the jury at Watkins’s trial, had believed the Battersea barber’s story, clearly the Home Secretary, Sir George Cave, had some misgivings about it. When the docket requiring him to confirm Watkins’s execution arrived on his desk, he deliberated on the matter for over a week before writing his decision.